News Ticker: Christina Aguilera, Paul Westerberg, MTV Movie Awards, Ke$ha

• Christina Aguilera has relaunched her official website in anticipation of her upcoming album Bionic. A countdown clock is ticking down to tomorrow, when the site promises "Big News" will be revealed. For more on Bionic, check out our Spring Music Preview.

• The same day SXSW paid tribute to Alex Chilton, Paul Westerberg wrote a New York Times op-ed about his mentor, explaining how the last time the two saw each other, the Big Star singer revealed he was living in a tent in Tennessee.

• Comic and Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari is booked to host MTV's 2010 Movie Awards, according to the L.A. Times' Showtracker blog. The show will air live from the Gibson Amphitheatre on June 6th.

• Sources tell SaturdayNightLive.com Ke$ha will bring her glitter and fierce attitude to Saturday Night Live on April 17th, when she'll serve as the musical guest for the episode hosted by Ryan Phillippe.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter